Architect of India's Economic Reforms

June 1991, the then Finance Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh presented his first Finance Budget in the Parliament of India that put the roadmap for LPG – Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization. He thus laid down the architecture of Indian Economic Reforms that saw unleashing of economic progress in our country and opening of India to the world. Dr. Singh knew that it was a big bold step that will encounter many challenges and therefore he ended his budget speech with a Sher written by a poet from Bihar – Bismil Azimabadi – and popularized by Ram Prasad Bismil.

"Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai,

dekhna ki zor kitna baazu-e-qatil mein hai.”

Dr. Singh’s this move left an indelible mark on India’s economy. It was a turning point in the economic history of independent India which witnessed bold economic reforms, abolition of licence raj and opening of many sectors to private players and foreign players so that capital could flow in. After serving as Governor of Reserve Bank of India from 1982 to 1985, he served the nation for next fourteen years from 1991 to 2014 as Finance Minister, Member of Parliament and Prime Minister (for a continuous tenure of ten years) but never took the credit for historic achievements including MGNREGA causing the fastest compression of poverty anywhere in the world in world history according to World Bank.

Dr. Manmohan Singh was a humble and self-effacing person who wore his scholarship lightly. Today words are falling short to shower adjectives for this visionary politician by the world leaders, bureaucrats and intellectuals – a thorough gentleman, one of the stalwarts, great economist, patient listener, persuasive, visionary politician, humble person while upholding his personal values, a renowned name in the global financial and economic sectors, true statesmen and acumen with vision, humility and commitment to India’s growth, kind, benevolent and gracious person but intellectually very sharp, inspiring and venerated leader, an honest man, India’s one of the most illustrious sons, a man with nobility, integrity and tolerance, and the adjectives go on. Salute to this simple but great man -a Pinnacle of Nobility, Integrity, Wisdom and Exceptional Intelligence..

 Indexing Human Life

Human body is made up of five elements – Panchtattva – Air, Water, Soil, Fire and Space (Akash). The purity of these elements speaks of the purity of human beings. Unfortunately the extent of impurity in these elements barring Fire to some extent is rising day by day. Air quality is deteriorating as indicated by Air Quality Index (AQI) of different cities, and in some cities like Delhi it is crossing its extreme making life hell for people there. Hence what was considered as important for living / breathing is now becoming lethal for mankind. Water is becoming toxic day by day making it undrinkable and unusable for daily uses of mankind. The Yamuna river water is an example before us which is full of toxic foam floating all along the surface bed of this river. Soil is turning into another toxic element because of use of fertilizers, chemicals, insecticides and so on and hence growing infertility reducing its production capacity. Space is being filled with space debris which is gradually becoming a global concern. It is fire alone of these five elements which seems to be spared to some extent by the human greed and hence remaining unpolluted as of now.

Everyday morning we wake up to find out what is the AQI for today. The human life is therefore getting indexed to this AQI. There is no self-restrain towards saving the humanity from this tyranny of natural resources. We have to awake.  

 

Frugal Innovation takes over Jugaad for winning Noble Prize

Long ago Gonu Jha, a rural native from Mithilanchal area of Bihar, did a Jugaad to safely participate in a dairy development program launched by the then British government. He made a cat to learn not to drink milk by repeatedly feeding her hot milk. This way he conditioned the cat to learn that milk is always hot and hence ran away at the very sight of milk being brought for her. This Jugaad had four variables – a cow, a cat, milk and its boiling. The outcome was that the cat learnt not to drink milk even after cold milk being brought for her. This Jugaad led Gonu Jha to save his head from the British Authorities for playing cheat with their instructions and won him a prize at the conclusion of the said dairy development program.

 

Long after a similar experiment was done by Prof. Steven Pavlov. This frugal innovation also had four variables – a dog (in place of act), meet (in place of milk), bell and light (in place of hot and cold milk). The outcome was that the dog learnt to salivate even after there was no meat offered to him. This frugal innovation led Prof. Pavlov earn the Noble Prize for developing “Conditioning Theory of Learning”.

Poor Gonu Jha!

What wins – a Jugaad or a Frugal Innovation?

DR. Hari Mohan Jha “Bidyarthi” (Shegaon)